


Final Words

by Brumeier



Series: Bite Sized Fic 2019 [50]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, First Kiss, Hospitalization, M/M, Mutual Pining, Prompt Fill, Temporary Character Death, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-06 03:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20284459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: LJ Comment Fic for 100 Words on Secrets prompt:Any, any, they took the secret to their graveIn which fear of rejection becomes so overwhelming that important things are left unsaid until it becomes too late to say them. Or is it?





	Final Words

**Author's Note:**

> Also written for Hurt/Comfort Bingo: rejection

There was a bigger turnout at the funeral than Danny expected. Jersey relatives he hadn’t seen in twenty years or more had made the trip. Members of HPD, the Governor, friends, and even some Navy personnel were sitting out in the sun looking at his flower-draped casket.

“Cousin Mel didn’t come to _my_ funeral,” Matt complained.

“She always liked me more,” Danny teased half-heartedly. 

He and Matt were sitting on headstones nearby, something Danny never would’ve done when he was alive because it was so disrespectful. But he wasn’t alive anymore, and nothing mattered. Nothing would ever matter again.

“Grace looks so grown-up.”

Danny was trying not to look at her, or Charlie sitting so solemnly beside her. She’d just started college – marine biology, of course – and he was so proud of her. When it was time, she got up to the podium and gave the eulogy.

“Do we have to be here?” Danny asked. His throat was tight, and his face was wet as he listened to his baby girl tell the assembled crowd why her father was and always would be her hero. “I can’t do this.”

“You owe it to them,” Matt said. 

“It’s not my fault I got shot!”

“Of course not. But you need to hear their last words to you. It’ll help when it’s time to move on, trust me.”

There was nothing Danny could say to that. Matt was his younger brother, but he’d died first. He was the one with the experience this time.

“I hate to point this out, bro, but your man Steve isn’t doing so well.”

Steve was sitting up front with the rest of Five-0, resplendent in his dress blues. He was so stiff he might have been a sculpture. Anyone who didn’t know him would assume he was being respectfully solemn. But Danny knew Steve almost as well as he knew himself. He could see the deep lines of grief etched in Steve’s handsome face, could see the how red his eyes were and how his hands were clenched so tightly his knuckles were white.

Danny hated that he was another loss for Steve, who already had so many. He hated that he wouldn’t be there to keep Steve from doing stupidly heroic things for other people and not taking any care with himself.

“You ever tell him?” Matt asked.

Danny shot his brother a side-eye look. “Tell him what?”

“Really? That’s how you’re gonna be? The dead have no secrets with each other. Especially when they’re brothers.”

If only the dead couldn’t feel guilt.

“No. I didn’t tell him.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Steve knowing I’m in love with him serves no purpose. It won’t make him any less sad.”

Matt snorted and rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. What’s the real reason?”

“Don’t push it.”

Matt make chicken noises and bobbed his head at Danny. Clearly death didn’t make a person more mature.

“I didn’t want to give him the chance to say no, okay? Is that what you wanted to hear? I couldn’t take the rejection. Not from Steve.”

Dying was preferable to the look that would’ve been on Steve’s face if Danny had confessed what was in his heart. They were best friends. They relied on each other every day, in a hundred different ways that weren’t necessarily tied to just the job. Losing that trust, losing the bond they had together, would’ve destroyed Danny.

“You’re that sure he’d have said no?”

“Yes, doubting Matthew, I’m that sure. I think I know Steve a little better than you do.”

“If you say so.”

While they’d been arguing, the cemetery had emptied out. Danny didn’t know where everyone was going for the traditional post-funeral consumption of meat platters and casseroles. Rachel’s? Steve’s? Some neutral location like a restaurant?

“So what happens now?” Danny asked. “Bright light? Angels with harps?”

“Now you get to hear Steve’s final words.”

Okay, so not everyone was gone. Steve was standing next to the open grave Danny’s casket had been lowered into. Danny got off the headstone and moved to stand next to Steve, as if he could offer comfort just by being close.

Steve didn’t say anything for a long time, and when he finally did his voice was choked with emotion.

“I thought we’d have more time, Danno.”

Danny was glad Steve couldn’t see him crying. “Me too, babe.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Steve was openly crying now, too, and Danny didn’t know how much more of that he could take. If he’d been there in the flesh, he’d have pulled Steve into a hug. He’d always tried to shield Steve from his most painful emotions.

“You deserved my honesty and I was too cowardly to give it to you.”

Danny swiped his hand over his eyes. “What?”

“I thought you’d be mad. Might even hate me. But I should’ve given you the benefit of the doubt.”

Danny tried to put his hand on Steve’s shoulder, but there was an invisible barrier that blocked the contact. “Steven. There’s nothing you could tell me that would make me hate you. Not after everything we’ve been through. How are you still this emotionally stunted?”

He waited for Steve to confess, to share his secret, but all he said before he left the cemetery was, “I love you, Danno.”

“Steve –” Danny tried to follow, but again he was blocked by an invisible barrier. “Matt, what the fuck?”

“You can’t go,” Matt said apologetically. “You don’t have a place with the living anymore.”

“But he didn’t tell me his secret!”

“I think you already know,” Matt said. He gave Danny his patented _don’t be an ass_ look. “For two intelligent guys, you’re both pretty stupid.”

“Hey!”

Danny’s protest was all for show. Had he and Steve been feeling the same all this time? Just too afraid of being rejected, censured, abandoned to say anything? The idea of it took his breath away, and the unfairness of being dead hit him once again.

“Having regrets, bro?”

“Fuck you.”

“Danny.” Matt put his hands on Danny’s shoulders and looked him in the eye. “Would you do it different? Knowing what you know now?”

“What difference does it make?” Danny snapped angrily. “I’m dead! I can’t do anything.”

“Don’t take your love to the grave, brother. You only get one chance.”

*o*o*o*

Steve was dozing in the chair next to the bed, the steady beeping of the heart monitor lulling him to sleep. Despite that, the second he saw Danny’s fingers twitch he was wide awake.

It took a while to go from twitching to consciousness, but Steve could be patient. It had been a really close call – terrifyingly close – and he was willing to let Danny take his time coming back.

“Hey. There you are,” Steve said when Danny finally opened his eyes. “Nice and easy, buddy.”

Danny reached out with one trembling hand and Steve didn’t hesitate to meet him halfway, curling his fingers around Danny’s. He thought Danny just needed some comfort, and then Steve found himself being tugged closer and closer.

And then Danny kissed him, lips chapped and dry, right on the mouth.

“Love you too,” he rasped.

**Author's Note:**

> **AN:** This prompt demanded a deathfic, which I was fully committed to writing. But…how could I do that to Steve? So instead this became a near-death experience and brotherly intervention, because how can I not give Steve and Danny a chance to make things right?


End file.
